Morning has broken (5.00 A.M. Bristol West)

Pounding scars

Stone mad carvings

Blind thieves steal the night

Flaking ear head

In the shed maker's hall

Time to spin is nigh,

And feeling like a f*****g, broken spoon

Spoilt by the tea stain fleck,

dissecting inner overtures

With muscles filled with gas,

Sign posted scalp,

Crippling in the heat,

Hand fried, deep scan,

Slugging whisky town,

Scream:

Moaning to my knees,

Walked a hundred miles

With barbed wire for a brain,

Scathed by the desert,

Big cars - small hearts,

Still standing and waiting;

Tartan tarmac prince.

Reviews

[Eilis]

Oh, already had this one in my reading library, just never returned to it for some reason. I know I've read it many times. It's just one of those I sort of feel more than think. Like the scene works itself over the wrinkles of my brain.

My favorite thing about this is the creative phrasing and unique images. You are a great one for that. Surprising imagery or some connection I had never thought of before. Especially like the tartan tarmac prince. If you are the Scot in Bristol, then perhaps there's a bit of the Good Samaritan idea threading through. That could be a stretch of a connection, but it just came in my head. The weary traveler in need would is far from home and finds the small hearts unwilling to let him in.

The contrast between the openness of the roadside and all that evokes, and the closed and beating space of the head-trap creates this kind of surreal disconnection. Like having the entire world at one's fingertips but being unable to access any of it. Freedom has different faces, and sometimes it leaves us with nothing. And strangers do not care. Like the river in your other poem. They have to keep flowing and don't have time to consider what's going on in the life of the hitcher.

Really love the ways this creates a new kind of language for the anger and alienation of being without--whether it is without peace or without a soul to lend a hand. It's quite evocative and brims with emotional context. Excellent poetry.

[gram linski]

wow, thanks for the great review, Eilis, it was a ,hitch back from Cork, took 15hrs to get there and 27 to get back, so my brain was a bit frazzled and this is sort of my journey, but some of the imagery got lost between the memory and the pen, tartan prince was the whisky we had been drinking all week, seemed appropriate, lol, thanks again for your great comments, always get a bit excited by an Eilis review

[Chris Shaw]

Walked a hundred miles, oh my goodness?5.00am in the morning and no transport. Seems like the pits to me. Big cars, small hearts, no one stopped for ya. Not a good place to be. How were your blisters?

Chris

[gram linski]

Drunk and angry, and writing bleeding poems in my shoes, lol

[Chris Shaw]

Commiserations :)

[John Alexander McFadyen]

Just waking is hard but with that hang over it feels double jeopardy. And anyone who has to rise so early in Bristol West has my sympathies fella! This feels full of emotion, particularly anger and disappointment and is is peppered liberally by some very emotive phraseology.

[gram linski]

There was no waking, or rising, dude, just many hours stood by the side of the road, that may explain the anger and disappointment

[wordman]

standing in the rain,tarmac blues

[gram linski]

Hitchin's a b***h, dude, I'm sure you understand, cheers

[wordman]

you`re welcome